April 23

The greater part of our happiness or misery depends on our dispositions, and not on our circumstances. We carry the seeds of the one or the other about with us in our minds wherever we go. ~ Martha Washington

We are such stuff as dreams are made on; and our little life is rounded with a sleep. ~ "Prospero" in The Tempest by William Shakespeare (birth traditionally celebrated 23 April 1564, died 23 April 1616 O.S.)

We defy augury; there's a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, 'tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come: the readiness is all. ~ "Hamlet" in Hamlet by William Shakespeare

We all were sea-swallow'd, though some cast again: And by that destiny, to perform an act Whereof what's past is prologue, what to come In yours and my discharge. ~ William Shakespeare in The Tempest ~

Suggestions

The quality of mercy is not strain'd,It droppeth as the gentle rain from heavenUpon the place beneath: it is twice bless’d;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.
~ William Shakespeare (The Merchant of Venice)

The poet’s eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;And, as imagination bodies forthThe forms of things unknown, the poet’s penTurns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothingA local habitation and a name.
~ William Shakespeare (A Midsummer Night's Dream)

Full fathom five thy father lies;Of his bones are coral made;Those are pearls that were his eyes; Nothing of him that doth fade,But doth suffer a sea-changeInto something rich and strange. ~ "Ariel" in The Tempest by William Shakespeare~

It is not the literal past that rules us, save, possibly, in a biological sense. It is images of the past. These are often as highly structured and selective as myths. Images and symbolic constructs of the past are imprinted, almost in the manner of genetic information, on our sensibility. ~ George Steiner

We are still waging Peloponnesian wars. Our control of the material world and our positive science have grown fantastically. But our very achievements turn against us, making politics more random and wars more bestial. ~ George Steiner

We cannot turn back. We cannot choose the dreams of unknowing. We shall, I expect, open the last door in the castle, even if it leads, perhaps because it leads, on to realities which are beyond the reach of human comprehension and control. And we shall do so with that desolate clairvoyance, so marvellously rendered in Bartok's music, because opening doors is the tragic merit of our identity. ~ George Steiner

The ordinary man casts a shadow. In a way we do not quite understand, the man of genius casts light. Instinctively, we flinch from this light. We assure ourselves that genius must pay a terrible price. Often history bears us out: the creator, the supreme artist, the master of politics carries the scars of his greatness. ~ George Steiner

O masters, lords and rulers in all lands How will the Future reckon with this Man? How answer his brute question in that hour When whirlwinds of rebellion shake all shores? How will it be with kingdoms and with kings — With those who shaped him to the thing he is — When this dumb Terror shall rise to judge the world. After the silence of the centuries? ~ Edwin Markham ~